Whether you’re trying to impress your significant other or cooking for one, everyone wants to know how to make the best steak. Originally, this recipe was overly complicated with a lot of ingredients that took away from the great steak flavor. After years of tweaking it became obvious, the way to make the best steak is to let the steak be the star.
Here are two cooking variations to the best steak recipe in the world. Once you nail this recipe and technique, your Black Label Steak will be embarrassingly better than even steaks from finest of restaurants.
Ingredients
- 2-3″ thick cut of your favorite steak (filet, porterhouse, ribeye, strip, etc.) Just remember, sirlon is a great addition to a hamburger, but life’s too short to eat sirloin steaks.
- 3 Tablespoons Butter
- Kosher Salt
- Cracked Black Pepper
Grilling Directions
- Start coals on grill.
- Add a chunk or two of your favorite sweet smoking (fruit or nut tree) wood to the coals.
Stove Top Directions
- Set your oven top to high heat and put a cast iron skillet on it.
The Technique
- Completely cover the steak in Kosher salt (should look like a cow lick) and let sit for 7 minutes per inch of thickness.This pulls water out of the steak to enhance the beef flavor. It also has the nice side effect of adding just the right amount of salt flavor.
- Wash all of the salt off the steak and pat dry.
- Melt butter and set aside.
- Crack pepper and apply to steak.
- Start preheating oven to 375° (if you’re grilling, put your cast iron skillet in the oven to heat as well).
- Generously coat 1 side of steak with butter and place coated side down of the grill or skillet.
- Allow to cook for 2 minutes (if you’re on the grill, you may want to turn 45° about 1 minute in for a nice grill mark presentation). All you’re trying to do here is get a nice crust. Contrary to popular belief, searing does not “lock in the juices”, but it does add a great flavor.
- Apply butter to top of the steak (the side you haven’t buttered yet) and flip.
- Allow to cook for another 2 minutes.
- Move steak to the oven by either moving the cast iron skillet from the stove top or by placing the steak from the grill on the heated cast iron skillet already in the oven.
- Cook in oven for another 4-8 minutes (depending on desired doneness) flipping half way through.
- Remove steak from cast iron skillet and place on a plate, or I prefer a wire cooling rack.
- Tent the steak with foil and allow to rest for 10 minutes.
- Serve.
Notes:
- Once you get this down, it will ruin eating steak at restaurants (you’ve been warned).
- If you don’t have a good seasoned cast iron skillet, you need one. They’re less than $20 at Amazon.
- You can use a cheap 2-4″ paintbrush to apply the butter, but for less than $10 you can pickup a silicon basting brush from Amazon and not worry about having little brush hairs end up in your steak.